Gendered Violence, Policing, and Political Activism: Women’s Participation in Public Policy-Making in Central America

• In Event: The Rights of Women- defending values and opening pathways

Abstract

Skyrocketing crime rates, especially those connected to drug trafficking (narcos) and street gangs (maras), has produced a major policy debate in Central America over the causes, consequences, and possible cures of the criminal problem. Unfortunately, this entire policy debate has been conducted with an image of male-on-male violence that takes place in the public streets, overlooking the widespread violent victimization of women. While feminist scholars have drawn attention to this violence, especially in light of the phenomenon of femicide along the US-Mexico border and in Guatemala City, their voices have rarely found their way into the policing debate. In this research project, I intend to assess political organizing by women anti-violence activists and different government responses to that organizing and to gender-based violence in Central America.
Based on interviews conducted between April and August 2015, this paper will compare the ability of women's rights and anti-violence NGOs in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua to participate in and influence policy making around crime and violence. I will discuss both more formal types of access and influence (such as lobbying and membership in national legislatures) and more informal types (such as media campaigns and public protest.) The ability to participate, protest, and even exist as an independent organization vary considerably in practice in these three countries. Women activists in Nicaragua, where crime and violence are relatively well-controlled, confront widespread opposition within the government to their advocacy. In El Salvador, where the situation of public security is quite precarious, often find a generous reception from the government. Finally, despite the increasing attention given to the epidemic of femicide in Guatemala City, Guatemalan women activists routinely find that their concerns are lost in broader political struggles over violence and impunity. This paper will thus place the voices and experiences of women activists at the center of the Central American debate over violence and policing.

Author

• Rachel E Bowen, Ohio State University/Mansfield